English

How to build a Hopf algebra

Category Theory 2025-09-17 v2 Algebraic Topology Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We construct a functor that inputs a retract in an (,3)(\infty,3)-category satisfying some adjunctibility conditions and outputs a Hopf algebra in a braided monoidal (,1)(\infty,1)-category. Provided the braided monoidal category is presentable, any Hopf algebra can be obtained in this way. Our functor specializes to - and provides a higher-categorical explanation for - the Tannakian reconstruction of a Hopf algebra from a monoidal category with duals and a fiber functor. Towards this end, we review and develop the lax (aka Gray) tensor product \otimes of (,)(\infty,\infty)-categories, and we analyze the "lax smash product" of pointed (,)(\infty,\infty)-categories. We compute the lax-\wedge-square of the "walking adjunction" and show that its 33-localization corepresents retracts with some adjunctibilty conditions, whereas the 33-localization of the lax-\wedge-square of the "walking monad" corepresents bialgebras. In these terms, our functor is restriction along the lax-\wedge-square of the inclusion {walking monad}{walking adjunction}\{\text{walking monad}\} \to \{\text{walking adjunction}\}. After 33-localization, we show that this restriction inverts a certain shear map, proving the existence of an antipode. We discuss generalizations of this construction to Hopf monads, analyze additional adjunctibility conditions and their interplay with integrals and cointegrals, and finally explain how variants of classical Tannakian reconstruction fit into our scheme.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.16787,
  title  = {How to build a Hopf algebra},
  author = {Theo Johnson-Freyd and David Reutter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.16787},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

74 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:02:28.349Z